The World Health Organization said, on Friday, that the spread of Omicron is due to a combination of factors, including mutations carried by the mutant and increased social mixing, according to Agence France-Presse.
The head of the technical team in the Emergency Diseases Unit of the World Health Organization, Maria Van Kerkhove, said that people should reduce their exposure to the virus and try to control its transmission, following a week during which a record number of injuries was recorded.
Van Kerkhove confirmed that Omicron spreads very quickly among people for several reasons, the first of which is the mutations it carries, which allows it to attach to human cells more easily.
And “secondly, there is the so-called immune escape. This means that the infection can recur … in those who have previously been infected and those who have been vaccinated,” according to a statement distributed by the World Health Organization.
And the health official added that “there is another reason is that we are witnessing a proliferation of omicron in the upper respiratory tract, and it differs in this from delta and other mutant.”
But in addition to these factors, the spread of the virus is also driven by the increased mixing of people and spending more time in closed places in the winter season in the northern hemisphere, and the failure to adhere to preventive measures such as physical distancing.
And Maria Van Kerkhove added, “To the general public, what you should care regarding is just reduce your exposure to the virus. We want people to understand and feel that they have some ability to control the infection.”
She stressed that avoiding long-term symptoms is “reason enough” to try to avoid catching the virus.
Study talks regarding the origin of Omicron
and according study Published by the Journal of Genetics and Genomics, Chinese researchers believe they have evidence that the Omicron mutant may have come from mice.
The study revealed that “Molecular Mutations Spectrometry” showed a significant difference from the virus mutant that developed in human patients, but it is very similar to “mutants associated with virus development in a mouse cell”.
She notes that the Omicron variant was first reported last November, and by analyzing it, it was found that it contains “45 mutations”, which made it somewhat resistant to some vaccines, and it became more capable of spreading faster.
According to the study conducted by a team of scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, it appears that “the virus has adapted to infecting mice cells.”
These scientists believe that “the virus may have passed to mice from humans, where it accumulated unusual mutations, before returning once more to humans,” which indicates “the evolutionary path between other mutations.”
Scientists point out that while the ‘Omicron story’ is inconclusive, it is a good idea to research the origins of the mutant, to help anticipate and prevent the emergence of a dangerous mutant in the future.
The World Health Organization reported regarding 9.5 million new cases of corona last week, which is a record number, an increase of 71 percent over the previous week.
